34 Bible Verses about Striving With God

And when we all fell to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why do thou persecute me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads.

And, behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with the trumpets of alarm to sound an alarm against you. O sons of Israel, fight ye not against LORD, the God of your fathers. For ye shall not prosper.

There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against LORD.

Take counsel together, and it shall be brought to nothing. Speak the word, and it shall not stand, for God is with us.

If then God gave to them the identical gift as also to us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but what power was I to hinder God?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], Let us break their bonds apart, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens will laugh. LORD will have them in derision.read more.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his great displeasure.

The wicked man travails with pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor. A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. He does not believe that he shall return out of darkness. And he is awaited by the sword.read more.
He wanders abroad for bread, [saying], Where is it? He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him as a king ready to the battle. Because he has stretched out his hand against God, and behaves himself proudly against the Almighty. He runs upon him with a [stiff] neck, with the thick studs of his bucklers,

Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers, ye also.

Rather, O man, who are thou answering back to God? No, will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why did thou make me this way?

Woe to him who strives with his maker, a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him that fashions it, What are thou making? or thy work, He has no hands? Woe to him who says to a father, What are thou begetting? or to a woman, With what are thou travailing? Thus says LORD, the Holy One of Israel and his maker: Ask me of the things that are to come concerning my sons. And command ye me concerning the work of my hands.

And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness! And why does LORD bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey. Were it not better for us to return into Egypt?read more.
And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

These are the waters of Meribah, because the sons of Israel strove with LORD, and he was sanctified in them.

Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, as the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers challenged me, proved me, and saw my work.

but if it is from God, ye cannot overthrow it, and perhaps ye may be found to be fighting against God.

Then David said to the Philistine, Thou come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin, but I come to thee in the name of LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou have defied.

this is the word which LORD has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised thee and laughed thee to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at thee. Whom have thou defied and blasphemed? And against whom have thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high? [Even] against the Holy One of Israel. By thy servants thou have defied LORD, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. And I will cut down the tall cedars of it, and the choice firread more.
I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.

And after falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do thou persecute me? And he said, Who are thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecute.

And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaks. And he said, I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.read more.
And he said to him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for thou have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.

LORD has also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways. He will recompense him according to his doings. In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he had strength with God. Yea, he had strength over the [heavenly] agent, and prevailed, [as] he wept, and made supplication to him. He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with us.read more.
But LORD God Almighty shall be his memorial.

And in this I fashion myself, having a conscience always nonstumbling before God and men.

Compete to enter in by the narrow gate, because many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and will not be able.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, having been sold under sin. For I do not understand what I do, for I do not do this that I want, but what I hate, this I do. But if I do this that I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.read more.
But now I no longer perform it, but the sin dwelling in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, for to will is present in me, but to do the good, I find not. For I do not do good that I want, instead, wrong that I do not want, this I do. But if I do this that I do not want, I no longer perform it, but sin dwelling in me. Consequently I find the law in my wanting to do good, that evil is present in me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see a different law in my body-parts, warring against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin, which is in my body-parts. I am a wretched man. Who will rescue me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I of myself in the mind indeed serve a law of God, but in the flesh a law of sin.

And every man who strives for mastery exercises self-control in all things. Indeed therefore those men do it so that they might obtain a perishable crown, but we an imperishable. I therefore run this way, not as aimlessly. I fight this way, not as flaying air. But I give my body a black eye and subdue it, lest somehow having preached to others, I myself might become disqualified.

to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the participation of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, if somehow I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already obtained or have already been fully perfected, but I press forward, if also I might seize upon that for which also I was seized by Christ Jesus.read more.
Brothers, I reckon myself not to have seized, but one thing, indeed forgetting the things behind, and reaching forward to the things ahead, I press forward toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

For we both labor and are reproached for this, because we have hoped in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful.

Ye have not yet resisted as far as blood, struggling against sin.

Epaphras, the bondman of Christ from you, salutes you, always striving for you in prayers, so that ye may stand perfect and made full in all the will of God.

And there is none who calls upon thy name, who stirs himself up to take hold of thee. For thou have hid thy face from us, and have consumed us through our iniquities.

And having become in agony he prayed more intensely, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down to the ground.

And Moses returned to LORD, and said, LORD, why have thou dealt ill with this people? Why is it that thou have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he has dealt ill with this people, neither have thou delivered thy people at all.

Why then have thou brought me forth out of the womb? I would have given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.

When I thought how I might understand this, it was too painful for me,

LORD, why do thou cast off my soul? Why do thou hide thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer thy terrors I am confounded. Thy fierce wrath has gone over me. Thy terrors have cut me off.read more.
They came round about me like water all the day long. They encompassed me around together. Thou have put beloved and friend far from me, and my acquaintances into darkness.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou will not hear? I cry out to thee of violence, and thou will not save. Why do thou show me iniquity, and look upon perverseness? For destruction and violence are before me, and there is strife, and contention rises up. Therefore the law is slacked, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked man surrounds the righteous man, therefore justice goes forth perverted.